#Freight Trains

[beeclops]

Leave it to John Oliver for retelling the VERY infamous Thomas the Tank Engine episode (the “Henry’s punishment” episode) as a way to describe America’s current freight train industry!

[fieriframes]

[How I would love to gnaw. Gnaw on your bones so white. And watch as the freight trains paw. Paw at the wild wild night.]

[gwydionmisha]

Freight Trains: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Regulations are written in blood. We need a lot more of them, not less.

[nicksbloggingadventures]

[dr-archeville]

Freight Trains: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) [source]

"John Oliver discusses freight trains and railroads, how they’ve put profits over safety, and, crucially, what shows he watched as a child that explain… everything." [27 min 39 sec]

[stone-cold-groove]

Q: Where is this train going? A: To an atomic development laboratory.

[w3bb3n]

Freights February 2024, London

[spraytrains]

freighttrains

[neverendingfreights]

FIRE, Freightgraffiti, Düsseldorf-Hamm, May 2022 von bart van kersavond Über Flickr: blog: EN / Freight Train Graffiti, Düsseldorf-Hamm DE / Graffiti auf Güterzügen, Düsseldorf-Hamm Freightgraffiti, Düsseldorf-Hamm urbanpresents on facebook urbanpresents on instagram kersavond on instagram urbanpresents on twitter urbanpresents on youtube urbanpresents on vimeo

[hydrogenandtime]

[prairie-tales]

This is the documentary which has piqued my interest in the 'Wild West'. The excellent ‘American Nomads’ from 2011 by Richard Grant. It took eight years to make and is based on his book ‘Ghost Riders: Travels With American Nomads’ (2003) which I am currently thoroughly enjoying (when I can muster up sufficient levels of concentration).

Being a geek, I transcribed some passages of particular interest. E.g.:

People have this idea that the West was won by heroic cowboys and that kind of thing - you get this idea from movies and mythology, but the key factors in the taming of the West were (1): disease, microbes, small pox [see my post about ‘William Penn’s Treaty With The Indians’ for the story of how Native Americans were given deliberately infected rolls of cloth by white traders] - that’s what really wiped out the nomadic tribes on the plains, these diseases which they had no resistance to. And (2) another really important factor was the invention of barbed wire fences. Fences restricted the free movement of animals and people, and enforced the new idea of private property. The nomadic Indian tribes hated fences. So did the nomadic trail cowboys who had grazed their herds up and down the plains. Now the damn things are everywhere.

So, the era of horseback nomads came to an end. The tribes were corralled on reservations. Railroads came, bringing their “iron horse” and in time the railroads produced a new and distinctly American form of nomadism. Transient labourers started riding the freight trains as a way to get to one harvest to the next. They were called ‘hobos’ and their hungry heyday was the Great Depression of the 1930s. After the Great Depression, America forgot about the hobos and tramps on its freight trains, but they never went away. At best guess, 20,000 people are still riding around on America’s freight trains.

Grant used to travel this way himself, but gave it up as it’s uncomfortable and dangerous. People have been known to lose limbs when trying to jump on to a moving train, only to fall and become trapped under its wheels.

[jckxie]

The space between.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Plucky Youth Reaches Goal, Had Long Trip," Kitchener Record. May 17, 1934. Page 14. --- STRATFORD, May 17. - Although believed now to be out of danger following an operation last week which necessitated the amputation of her left leg above the knee, was a happy Stratford mother who from her bed in the General Hospital greeted her 21-year-old son who came all the way from a farm in Alberta to be by her side. She is Mrs. George Rowe, Nelson street.

Some days before it was found necessary to amputate Mrs. Rowe leg word was sent to Ernest Rowe, 21, in Alberta where he has been working on a farm, as to the seriousness of her condition.

He left his work immediately and started east by riding freight trains. He made the trip in 10 days because he was almost penniless. He intended to make it in time for the operation but arrived shortly after.

Ernest intends to leave for the west in the near future to see if he can get more work, because he thinks it better to be on the road looking for work or working in the west rather than staying at home being a burden on someone else.

[writtenbygrimes]

Honest answers

Maybe see a doctor?

[stone-cold-groove]

America moves by rail.